Doyle and Becich Crowned Doubles Champs at ITA Midwest Regional

ST. PETER, Minn. – On the final day of play at the ITA Midwest Regional, Carleton College senior Bridget Doyle (Mendota Heights, Minn./Visitation) and first-year Mikayla Becich (Bradfordwoods, Pa./North Allegheny) completed their run through the doubles draw with a 6-2, 7-5 win over the top-seeded duo from Coe College. With regional crown, the two Knights advance to the USTA/ITA National Small College Championships, held Oct. 11-14 in Mobile, Ala.

The regional title also secures that Doyle and Becich will earn All-America status at the end of the 2012-13 season.

Sunday also saw Doyle play her semifinal match of the singles draw, falling 6-3, 6-3 to Jackie Vitale of UW-Whitewater.

In conjunction with this weekend’s ITA Regional, which includes 65 players from 23 of the top schools in the region, Gustavus Adolphus also held six flights of singles and a doubles bracket as the combined Midwest Fall Invite. Carleton sent a total of eight players to the two events.

“This is the best we’ve done in the last five, six years at this tournament,” said Carleton head coach Luciano Battaglini. “I’m super happy with everyone’s performance, especially the freshman since we only had two weeks to prepare because we started school so late. The freshmen really stepped up. This sets us up for an interesting winter and spring.”

All four Carleton players entered in the singles portion of the ITA Regional won their opening-round matches. Doyle, the No. 3 seed in the singles draw, knocked off No. 2 seed Alexandra Bayliss of UW-Whitewater in the quarterfinals by a 7-6, 0-6, 7-6 score. Molly Hemes (Jr./Green Bay, Wis./Preble) also advanced to the quarterfinals.

In doubles action, Hemes and Claire Spencer (Fy./Newport News, Va./Menchville) moved on to the second round, while Doyle and Becich claimed the title.

Carleton performed extremely well in the Midwest Fall Invite as well. First-years Grace Davis (Neenah, Wis./Neenah) and Julia Krumholz (Hingham, Mass./Hingham) won the top two singles flights while Felicity Flesher (Jr./Oxford, Miss./Oxford) and Joyce Yu (Fy./Taipei, Taiwan/Taipei American School) both made it to the second round.

Those four also progressed through the doubles draw and rather than playing each other, they were instead crowned co-champions.